YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN
TCM, 10:00 p.m. ET
This impressively informed parody of the Frankenstein films is only one of the two brilliant movies directed and co-written by Mel Brooks in 1974. (The other is Blazing Saddles. As film vintages go, for Mr. Brooks, not a bad year.) Starring and co-written by the equally gifted Gene Wilder, Young Frankenstein draws liberally, and inspiringly, from several movies in Universal’s Frankenstein canon, and gets the most out of so, so many cast members, from Wilder as the mad Dr. Frankenstein to Marty Feldman as his shifty hunchback assistant, Igor. (Well, his hunchback is shifty: Occasionally, it moves from side to side.) Neither man’s name is pronounced the way you’d expect – but defying expectations, and delighting the audience, is what this movie is all about.